New York and New Jersey Residents Watch Meteor Explode Over NYC at 38,000 mph

Along with people feeling like the ground was “shaking” and hearing loud noises, witnesses seem to have beat the most advanced institutions to reporting the phenomenon. According to NASA, a meteor was not even on their radar when residents saw the fireball in the sky.

NASA and the local authorities have now confirmed that a small meteor is probably responsible for the fireball. Residents in both New York and New Jersey reported having seen the meteor as it travelled west. However, it is not clear if the booms were related to the meteor or not.

The fireball then moved west toward New Jersey at a staggering 38,000 miles per hour. It then passed over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating. By the time the meteor had fallen apart, it was 29 miles above midtown Manhattan.

“Suddenly there’s a very loud sound in the sky. I think about 20% of people in England believe me right now. But I’m glad I have NASA backing me up that this is a real thing,” Bradley told FOX 5 New York.

Judah Bergman saw the meteor from his office in Lakewood, New Jersey. He told WABC: “It was long and really, really fast. It looked like a flaming, long rod or something on fire and flying through the sky.”

At this point in time, it remains unclear if the “booms” came from the meteor as they could have been due to military operations that were taking place at the same time in New Jersey.

Rayo said told Fox 5 New York: “[A fireball] is about 800 times brighter than a full moon, certainly bright enough to be visible in the daytime. It was visible for about three or four seconds. So, I think this was really an unusually large piece of cosmic debris that came through the atmosphere.”

“Something when it’s moving that fast, it heats up. You expect to see meteors at night, not during the day, so this was a rare daylight fireball,” Cooke said. NASA also said that fireballs are “exceptionally bright meteors that are spectacular enough to be seen over a very wide area.”

NASA said in a statement: “We do not (actually cannot) track things this small at a significant distance from the Earth, so the only time we know about them is when they hit the atmosphere and generate a meteor or a fireball.”

Dina Tang, a private chef, took particular enjoyment from just how rare this sort of weather event is. Tang said: “There’s something special about it. You forget about these incredible moments in life, when so much else is going on.”

NASA said in its statement: “We do keep track of asteroids that are capable of posing a danger to us Earth dwellers.” This meteor was “incapable of surviving all the way to the ground.”

Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator at the American Meteor Society, estimated the meteor was approximately the “size of a beach ball.” Lunsford said any shards from the asteroid “may have put a dent in somebody’s car. I wouldn’t worry and buy a helmet for when you go outside.”